Mothership HackerMoms

A new kickstarted hackerspace in Berkeley, CA where, as they say:

We started our non-profit organization in April 2012 because traditional hackerspaces don’t really have safe spaces for babies and young children – or, consequently, their mothers. Our mission is to give creative moms the time and space to explore DIY craft and design, hacker/maker culture, entrepreneurship, and all manner of creative expression – with childcare.

I truly, truly wish this pitch was slightly more “parent” focused and slightly less “mom”. As a hacking dad, I would love a space that was safe for me to, say, learn to weld, but also had a place for the kid that wasn’t quite so dangerous. There’s a single line in the description that says “We also welcome dads”, but on the Kickstarter page the word “mom” is mentioned 33 times, “mother” 11 times, the word “parent” once, and the word “dad” 3 times, once as the punchline of a joke.

I fully own that I have my own baggage in the media representations of parenting, and I totally grok why it’s a great idea to have a women-focused Makerspace…but as a committed dad who is also a maker, I haz a sad.

But I’m still going to back it, as the more women we have in STEM-focused fields the better off we will be.

My guess is that no matter how “enlightened” you and I may be, statistically mothers are overwhelmingly the primary caregivers during their children’s early years. (I’ll stand corrected if that’s not the case.) If you’re willing to accept that, then I think it’s hard not to support a group of mothers who aim to create a very-young-child friendly and supportive hackerspace—to build that in as a core value, to show other mothers (and fathers) an example of how it can be done. (It has to start somewhere, and my guess is, the Dads weren’t doing it—primarily because they aren’t saddled with a baby on their boob for months at a time.) To fault them for not being more gender-neutral/parent-inclusive seems like a double-standard.